SORT

Artist

Pauline Mitchell

Biography

I have an extensive background in textiles and other media. When my husband and I moved back to the states permanently after teaching in international schools for over twenty years I pared down my art practice to work primarily in figurative clay. When I began to work with the figure, the women I sculpted represented their cultures through costume. But eventually I decided that the costume separated groups one from another…and my aim was to sculpt the human figure in a way that expressed unity. The figures became more simplified. In my sculptures, women are at rest and in thought. The sculptures are faceless, middle aged, marked by experience and made beautiful by time.

I also do many works of sea creatures; the association of women with the sea is legendary. We are creatures of and from the sea; mermaids, carriers of the sea in amniotic fluid, living near the sea since prehistory. Women are creators of life much like the sea.

My work deals with bodies in relationship to one another and the sea. Evoking the power of women, of nurture and nature, and the essential beauty and wonder of the body, no matter the age, health or size.

One of my collections, One in Eight, is of torsos of women who have had mastectomies. I am a cancer survivor myself. Why this body of work? To heal…and to share with others who have been on the same journey.